Nick

Starting Rotation Season Opener 2022 vs 2021 Eovaldi vs Eovaldi Sale vs E Rod Pivetta vs Pivetta Wacha vs Richards Hill vs Perez Sale made his debut on August 14th and started 9 regular season games. I just don't understand the 'panic' on this board. Moon, Eovaldi, Pivetta and Sale (thr 8/14) has chance to be better than Eovaldi, Pivetta and E Rod (thr 8/14) of 2021. I'd say Wacha/Hill combo versus Richards/Perez is a wash. I would also contend that we have more starting options in 2022 than in 2021. I won't even bring up Paxton because a Yankee fan told me he's brittle or something. Why the panic?

I don't mean to give impression that I'm okay with the team as it stands. I will be very disappointed if we don't add Suzuki. Verdugo, Kike and JBJ? Really? I'm not a fan of JBJ. I was hoping we flip him again for additional minor leaguers. The guy goes on a 3 month slumps. Or Sox can make a bold move and add Correa. I love Xander but he's just not a very good shortstop. You'll know a good shortstop when you see it. Contracts coming off after 2022 $22M JD (replaced by Dalbec/Casas) $17M Eovaldi (replaced by Houck) $16M Price $07M Kike (re-sign him) $07M Vaz $07M Wacha (replaced by Whitlock) $05M Hill (replaced by Paxton) $03M Strahm Total $77M Throw in another $20M for Xander opting out, that gets us close to $100M coming off the books for 2023. Cot's has us at $210M. We could blow past the $230M this year and bring it back down next year.

Yankees add Josh Donaldson. He's right handed, no? Interesting. I thought they wanted to add left handed bats.

I became a Sox fan in 1967. Henry's teams have won 4 World Series and I will give him the benefit of doubt. He doesn't intentionally put on a s*** show. At some point, it's on the players. Look at 2019. On paper, our starting pitching looked very good. It didn't turn out that way. We're almost done getting rid of dead money, Price and Pedroia contracts comes to mind. I'd be surprised if we're not a finalist for Suzuki.

We added two lefties today to the pen. Jake Diekman is projected to be our best lefty. Matt Strahm was the other depth piece. That's on top of three other lefties that pitched for the Sox last year, Hernandez, Taylor and Davis. Bloom is making incremental improvements. You simply can't dismiss every addition because they are not signed for $10M+. If Houck or Whitlock starts, that means one of the projected starters will go to the pen. You NEVER see the other side of equation. We had a closer in Barnes, look how well that worked out. Maybe he'll be the closer again this year. You keep trying to make the team better, Old Red. Bloom is not going to give up. Henry is not going to put out a s*** show. Lastly, a reminder that our 2019 opening payroll was higher than 2018 World Championship team. We reset in 2021 (forget 2020). We have $100M possibly coming off the books after this year. I doubt we'll ever have the payroll that Rays live with. Bloom has done what he said he will do. Our farm system is improved. Eventually that will benefit the Sox. I think we're on the right path.

Up 2-1 with 2 games in Fenway coming up....I'll take that every year. Some of you keep bringing up E Rod being gone. Here's my take. We have Chris Sale to replace him at beginning of season. It's my hope that Paxton will replace last year's Chris Sale. There's still chance either Houck or Whitlock will start if needed. I think we have more depth in the pen. We should get more help from our farm system. I think overall pitching depth is better with today's 2 signings. We still need a right handed outfielder in my opinion.

It's the dumbest discussion title...misleading....wtf...

Lets sign some Free Agents..... I want Whitlock to start because I want to watch him start on my MLB subscription. Just don't start him on Friday nights.

No to trading away top prospects. We have some money to sign FA. Luxury Tax at $230M. I think we're slightly above $200M. Also we'd be a first time offender in 2022 so going over may not be a bad thing. Couple that with expiring contracts after the season means we can be little more aggressive. #1 priority for me is Mr. Suzuki.

I just want to watch baseball....

So basically a 12% return not factoring in inflation. Could she have done better with her money elsewhere?

We're being too simplistic. It's always about the opportunity cost. Big question is if you have $1B to invest, do you pick a baseball franchise or simply invest it elsewhere? It's foolhardy to think you can lose money and think you're okay with it because somehow the 'value' is going up. Only way that's happening is inflation. No one, not one single capitalist wants to lose money. Period. I am sure some smart people have figured out where the point of no return is for 2022 baseball season. Apparently, we're not there yet.

Good call on Sawamura....just because a guy has a contract doesn't mean he doesn't have arbitration years left. My bad. Foreigners...

I'm pretty sure Sawamura has two more years if the club exercise option for 2023. Probably a long shot but Sale does have an opt out after this year. I don't see Xander on your list so Sale shouldn't be either.

You have a valid point. I always believed that small market teams opposed increase in luxury tax limit due to imbalance that it would create from on the field competitiveness. I AM WRONG. Small market teams don't want to raise the luxury tax limit because in doing so there would be much lesser payroll amount subject to the tax. Players want to raise the limit, the higher the better. Owners, who many of them benefit from allocation of luxury tax back to them, would not want to raise the bar and decrease the amount subject to tax. It's taking money away from them. Owners should Increase minimum wage. Increase the funding and number of eligible players for the pre-arbitration player bonus. Hell give it to top 150 with a $100M pot. $3.3M per year per team. Award the said bonus pool to a metric, fWar as an example. Highest fWar player would get the most money, based on the ration of player fWar divided by total fWar for 150 players, multiplied by $100M. Get the season started.

I'm not sure if I would use the phrase 'hurt'. But based on sheer numbers my initial thought is big revenue clubs such as Yankees would lose most in terms of 'lost opportunity'. Despite high payroll, some have estimated Yankees' gross revenue to approach close to $350M. The club may withstand it financially for lost season but they probably lose OPPORTUNITY to earn $50M. That would 'hurt' no matter how rich I am. It may 'hurt' the Rays ownership more not to profit $10M. I'm just throwing out numbers. Also someone mentioned what the lost season would do to 'value' of a club. Most business takeovers I've been involved dealt with FUTURE free cash flow. I would guess that would be the case with baseball teams. So in example above, I would value the Yankees based on $50M annual free cash flow plus fair market value of hard assets. I doubt one partial season will diminish the value. As a seller, I'm asking you how much are you willing to pay me for a chance at earning $50M annual free cash flow? Obviously it's more complicated than that but an easy way to start thinking.

I'll say it again. Owners are in complete control when it comes to dishing out mega bucks. They want the players to stop them from spending. I suppose Yankee ownership can always claim, hey look, $210M is the soft cap. We're spending up to the soft cap, meanwhile pockets greater portion of gross revenue.

Latest from MLBTraderumors.....probably a long shot... As for the Red Sox, Rosenthal lays out a scenario where Correa takes over as their shortstop given that his defense is far superior to that of Xander Bogaerts, who could be shuffled over to second base. However, he also points out that, given the lockout-shortened Spring Training to come, there will be less time for Bogaerts to develop his skills at a new position than there would be in a more normal year, perhaps making the plan too awkward to implement successfully. After this season, Bogaerts can opt-out of the three years and $60MM that will be remaining on his contract, something that he seems likely to do if he has another healthy and productive season. Signing Correa now could be a way for Boston to preemptively replace Bogaerts, but as Rosenthal points out, the club hasn’t signed a free agent contract larger than $14MM since Chaim Bloom became the club’s chief baseball officer. Suddenly dropping $300MM on the table would be a huge departure in strategy. However, it’s exactly because of that avoidance of significant commitments that the club’s future payroll is fairly blank. If Bogaerts does indeed opt out after this season, that would leave Chris Sale as the only serious commitment on the books.

Luxury tax limitation.... I've proposed this idea in the past and this maybe a compromise between the owners and the union. Each year, a team receives an exemption for one player on its roster. This will impact only few teams. 1. Every player has one home team designation based the team the player was with when such player became eligible for 'rookie' designation. Many Sox players qualify, Xander, Devers, etc. 2. Use $20M as the maximum luxury tax payroll for computing the team payroll. Thus if Devers is signed to a $30M per year deal, only $20M of his contract would count against the luxury tax. 3. The idea is to keep home grown talent with the team he debuted. 4. Suppose Sox also extend Xander's contract. Player designation for this exemption can switch from year to year. Why not exempt Dever's entire payroll? Why not?

Texas Ranger's 2021 opening payroll was $95M. That number is sure to go up with additions of Seager ($32.5M), Semien ($25M) and pitcher Gray ($14M), total addition of $71.5M. I believe Davis ($16.75M) was in his final year of his contract and is now a FA. So some money will come off the books as well but overall, net plus on player payroll. I'd imagine player's union would have applauded the signings. First two are 10 and 7 year mega deals. But my guess is that for every mega contracts added, there's probably one that's coming to an end, David Price deal comes to mind (2022). There will never be a shortage of mega contracts. Owners can't help themselves. Someone will pay Devers for his bat. Count on it. Thus the focus for the union has to be for 70-80% of the lowly paid players. Owners need to raise the minimum wage. I just can't believe that's asking for too much money. Why not $1M? That should also raise the floor for teams on the cheap. Owners should provide incentive for pre-arbitration players. It could be a 'bonus' based on some standards. But one that would not carry into following year. You pay for what a player did. This bonus pool should be contributed equally by 30 owners. Chances are good that it will benefit smaller market teams, by definition who has more 'cheap' players on the roster, or should I say more accurately more pre-arbitration players. This one time bonus payment should be left off the luxury tax calculation. It's paid by the league and not the teams. Annual payment of $3M per team generates $90M into the pot. That's not much money. If you can't pay it, then you have no business owning a team. It's performance based so no player can bitch about it. Just thinking of ways to make the life better for minimum wage earners.

You pretty much hit the nail straight on. We just want to watch baseball.

Even at his best, Renfroe constantly feels like a player at war with his worst impulses. His cannon arm probably cost the Red Sox more runs than it saved, thanks to his bloodlust for assists. He recorded a league-leading 16 of them, but just as often airmailed a cutoff man to allow an extra base or overran a ball while thinking THROWTHROWTHROW. Offensively, he wants to pull everything, and understandably so. He's blessed with tremendous power and he barreled balls at an elite rate. But his best stretches came when he at least nodded at the idea of staying up the middle. When he entered hero mode, like during the American League Championship Series vs. the Astros, he became the easiest out in the lineup, trying to yank everything and going 1 for 16 as a result. Still, he blasted 31 homers while setting career highs in average (.259), on base percentage (.315), RBIs (96), and OPS. It's hard to complain about any of that, especially for 3 million bucks. I came across article this while reading about Noah Song by John Tomase, dated 11/11/2021. It's probably been covered here before but pretty good summary of Renfroe as a player. I never thought a Sox player would be criticized for hitting 31 homers and driving in 96 runs......modern age of analytics I guess.

Thanks a million!

Does anyone have an update on Noah Song? It's been several months ago but a former Navy pilot thought Noah's flight school training should have ended last fall. I thought I read this on SoxProspects site. It amazes me that there's absolutely NO NEWS on this guy. Has he called it quits? Anyone here with military contacts?

Maybe we should simply go to class system similar to the one used by high school associations. Opulent League...top 15 big spenders. 8 teams will make the playoffs. Top 4 teams will get a first round bye. Frugal League....top 15 least spenders. 4 teams will make the playoffs. #5 seed from Opulent League will play #4 seed from Frugal League, winner to play the #1 seed from Opulent League. #6 seed from Opulent League will play #3 seed from Frugal League, winner to play the #2 seed from Opulent League. #7 seed from Opulent League will play #2 seed from Frugal League, winner to play the #3 seed from Opulent League. #8 seed from Opulent League will play #1 seed from Frugal League, winner to play the #4 seed from Opulent League. There will be no interleague play, meaning 15 suck ass owners will get to play each other 162 times. Someone shoot me.